What's your favorite thing about the new translations?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,499
    Mine is the sound of the spoken English. It's quiet, reflective, and soft.

    "To our departed brothers and sisters, too, and to all who were pleasing to you at their passing from this life, give kind admittance into your kingdom. There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe every tear from our eyes. For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end, through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow in the world all that is good."
  • G
    Posts: 1,397
    i think it may be the variety, and the depth -- the idea that, no, I WON'T comprehend or even notice every iota on first hearing or reading; that every Mass for the rest of my life I will hear something and think, really? wait a minute... oh yeah... let me think about that... wow.

    No more sound bites, bumper stickers, pep rally cheers...

    You know, Fr Zuhlsdorf of WDTPRS can be... well, snarky, but his description of many of the current prayers is spot on, "Oh God, you are so big. Help us to be good like you."

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • Mark M.Mark M.
    Posts: 632
    Poetry, not prose… right?
  • Ken of Sarum
    Posts: 406
    "For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages. . . " This phrase unsettles and disturbs me enormously! Something in the back of my mind says it resembles Lucifer's comments about being like God. It smacks of the thinking that we shall be exalted to a point that we shall be like unto God. Perhaps I misunderstand the meaning of this statement, and I probably do since I am no expert in English. However, it just tremendously unsettles me to my core.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,365
    K of S cites a possible misapprehension of the promise of these words. But, I can't imagine most of us going astray here. After all, this is exactly the promise made through the First Epistle of John which we recently heard on All Saints' Day: 'we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is'. It is, of course, the faithful, the Church, who are addressed in these words. I find them enormously joyful and encouraging! There is no promise, pretense, or expectation of Godhead. I shall be more than thankful just to be a part of redeemed humanity.

    It would be difficult to choose from all the beauties of the proposed translation. It sounds so very much, but for the Tudorisms, like what I grew up with and currently enjoy in the Anglican Use. I always knew that these words were Catholic, and most people I knew believed what they said. Please dont' interpret these sentiments as any kind of triumphalism - I am thrilled that we have this language to look forward to. Why did we have to suffer through forty years of the embarassing doggerel which Fr Zuhlsdorf so aptly chracterises before being so blessed? How ecstatically refreshing it will be to attend mass in the Roman rite and to hear and use real English!
  • Andrew Coyne
    Posts: 42
    Ken of Sarum... I agree, it is unsettling. But then it seems that every true encounter with God is unsettling (or overwhelming) to a degree! I think it was St. John Vianney who said, If we experienced for a second how much God Loved us, we would literally die of love! The power would be so immense. To add to what M. Jackson Osborn said, I am reminded of the quote from Revelation, "and God will be All in All" The likeness of the saints to the Image of God is so great that it would seem as if they were completely One. After all, Christ Himself said to St. Paul, who was oppressing the early Christians, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting ME?" Our promised likeness to God is indeed great: we are his Mystical Body.
  • Ken of Sarum
    Posts: 406
    Dear M. Jackson Osborn & Andrew Coyne - THANK YOU so very very much from the depths of my heart! Your words and Christian insight dispelled my original disturbance and have given me GREAT comfort. I was blind, but now I see.
  • tdunbar
    Posts: 120
    the colateral opportunity to move to a better pew hymnal
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,933
    What's my favorite thing about the new translations? That they are not the old translations. Ditto on the new hymnal. I can hardly wait to toss the one I am using.
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    It's gentle, and not so 'casual'. I'm glad "And also with you" is replaced.
    Probably there are limits on what you can do with English, because I think the casualness and equality are important concepts in everyday life in America. But the language and the culture I brought up, 'reverance' and 'respect' are more important. So the language reflects that. For example, there are different ways of addressing to different people, and you cannot use the same pronouns and verb endings as well as other parts of the speech that you use for your children to you parents. So it sometimes still bothers me when my children use the same 'you' that they use to their dog to me. Even in school, I found it's very hard to teach and expect them to show 'respect' to the teachers. I even feel that their concept of 'respect' is dfferent from what I learned. So in CCD class, when we can talk about 'love,' I think the children get it. God loves us so we show love. But when we use the word 'reverance,' it's a hard concept for them. Their face looked puzzled. I hope the new translation helps us and the next generation learn 'reverance' and that God is still above us even if he came to earth as a human being.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    The word translation will mean something again.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 993
    I'm with Jeffrey Tucker. I hope that the day of "dynamic equivalence" is over. (This can be roughly defined as the "anything goes" school.)

    The language no longer sounds like a memo from your Human Relations department without sounding archaic. (And I know archaic because I grew up with the KJV - mentally I always spell "music" with a "k" when I hear the story of the Prodigal Son.)

    I think the level of the music will rise over time - and I hope the sartorial level in the pews follows along. God deserves the best, not the most convenient.
  • G
    Posts: 1,397
    I want to thank everybody on this thread.
    I cannot express, (oooh... is that ineffable?) what reading your thoughts and insights, on this as on so many topics, means to me.

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,365
    Good as it is by comparison (rather, contrast) the studied absence of the vocative leaves something to be desired greatly. It might seem, on the surface, to be but a small thing; but there is a tremendous difference of respect and awe (and concommitant reality) between the somewhat presumptuous 'Lord, you are holy...', and the appropriately reverential 'O Lord, you are holy...'. And, not just of a difference in the sense of proper attitude and worship due, but of cadence and poetic feel; perhaps one could say even 'of heiraticity'. (?)

    The restoration of the first person in the Creed is laudable, as is the obligatory bowing at the incarnation.
    'Consubstantial...' (a really nice & fine locution) is at least as potent and fulfilling as the Anglican Use's 'being of one substance with...'. They are each impeccable in their expession of the ineffable unity of Substance shared by the Divine Persons, a didactic and philosophical task at which the rather nebulous and gossamer
    'one in being' fails.

    Bells should be rungen, and Te Deums sungen after Masses Solemn, and a new feast should be put on the kalendar: The Bestowal of THE Translation of Novus Ordo.

    A Te Deum is in order! Just think of it! People will be Smarted UP for a change, not....... any more.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    Honestly, my favorite part of the new translations is, "and with your spirit." I feel like the Mass lost a LOT with the colloquial "and also with you," and every time I hear it I cringe a little (and often I say the wrong thing at first, too, being so used to divine liturgy). I hardly ever go to English Masses, though. Just an EF Mass from time to time.

    I still prefer "one in essence," but "consubstantial" is very good, and comes from a very solid Latin word. The first person is good, too; the communal aspect of the creed comes from reciting it together all at the same time, and the plural was just unnecessary.

    So, there's no vocative? Well, in Latin it's hard to tell the vocative anyway, isn't it, because the vocative and nominative are exactly the same except in the 2nd declension masculine singular... but "Lord" would be easy to tell at least (not "God" though, iirc).
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